Title: Loneliness

Author: Anmylica

Prompt: Longing

Genre: Angst, Humor

AU/CU: CU

Rating: T

Warnings: Mild language. Humor at the end that might not count as humor.

Word Count: 1067

A/N: It's been a while since I've watched the DBZ series, so I might have gotten the timing wrong when the androids come. Also, this is the first time I have ever written anything for DBZ, let alone Vegeta and Bulma (and the first time for this community!). This is more of a dive-in exercise to get a feel for writing Bulma's character (and a little bit of Vegeta).

Summary: Bulma contemplates what it means to be lonely, and to long for the one thing she can't ever seem to have.

Disclaimer: Anything you recognize belongs to Akira Toriyama and respective animation companies. No money is being made off this exercise, and thus copyright infringement is not intended. I own nothing of this wonderful anime series.

Of all the events she had ever been through in her life, the loneliness was the hardest to cope with. It used to be agonizing, back in her teenage years when the only thing she wanted was to find that perfect boyfriend, but it got better once she found Yamcha and Goku. It had eased off after meeting the two boys, and Puar the cat and Oolong the pig. Finally, she had friends. Real friends, the kind that didn't care who you were and try to be friendly because of your name and title as the future CEO of a large corporation. The kind that had your back in the moments of loneliness and pain.

She felt great longing for those days.

Now, she always felt alone. Oh, she had Trunks and her mom and dad, but it just wasn't the same as having that close confidant and lover. Yamcha had been that man once before, but it's been years. He had been replaced, and Vegeta didn't give a damn one way or the other.

Loneliness gave way to anger upon the thought of the Saiyan Prince. She rather thought this was good, because if she let herself delve deep into her emotions, she didn't think anger would be what she felt. But at this point, anger was all she could allow herself to feel. She couldn't let herself feel the betrayal at his vehement insistence that the child were not his and that even if it were he would never have anything to do with Trunks. Saiyans didn't have purple hair or blue eyes, after all, he said. She couldn't let herself feel heartbroken at his cold dismissal of her and everything they had shared. Oh, she remembered. She remembered how both of them had sworn that emotions didn't have any business growing into their relationship, that it was just for sex and the filling of that emotion that put her in this situation in the first place, loneliness. But she fell anyway. Hard. Fast. Irrevocably. It was nothing like how she felt for Yamcha.

Most of all she couldn't let herself feel scared. She couldn't feel scared that she fell for a man that could never, or would not ever, return her feelings. She couldn't feel scared that Trunks may never know his father. She couldn't feel scared that she might lose her friends, her family, and all that she held dear when the androids came. She couldn't feel scared for the future, the unknown, because that's really all that her fear came down to.

She couldn't let herself feel any of these emotions, because if she did she wasn't sure she would ever recover from the pain of them. But, oh, how she could feel anger. Restlessly she paced the floor of her lab. She had long ago given up trying to get any work done, her thoughts too all-over-the-place to adequately focus. Feeling like a pent-up tiger (or was it a Saiyan she felt more like right now?) she growled, and finally tore open the door and nearly ran through the compound to get to the door that led outside and to freedom. When she got to that door, she angrily punched the code to disable the alarm and quickly exited.

Stopping a few feet outside the door, she stopped abruptly and pulled out a cigarette. Quickly lighting it, she took a long drag, but the smoke didn't calm her. Chuckling ruefully, she realized the only thing that could calm her now was a nice, long scream fest with the guy who was giving these headaches and feelings in the first place. She raised her cigarette to take another puff only to discover it was finished. Feeling slightly off kilter that she didn't even realize how quickly she inhaled the first, she took another out of the carton and lit it, this time slowly taking in the fumes so as to try at a better attempt at some semblance of calm.

Once she finished she sighed and turned to go back inside. She decided to look in on Trunks one last time before she went to bed herself. The clock she glanced at on her way through the living room told her it was 3:30 in the morning. It was really time for her to get some sleep. She slowly climbed the stairs, suddenly feeling exhausted. Honestly this whole trying-to-ignore-those-certain-bad-emotions business was hard work.

Yawning, she peeked her head around the doorframe of Trunks' room; she never closed the door for fear of anything happening and she not being able to get to him in time, but this time was one time when she was doubly grateful she didn't close the door.

Vegeta was actually in the room with Trunks!

She was so shocked she stood as stiff as a board and stared with disbelieving eyes. Vegeta had his back turned to her, but she knew he knew she was there. Ignoring her, he bent over above the reinforced steel crib and sniffed the boy.

"The brat doesn't even smell like a Saiyan," she heard Vegeta mumble. "And what the hell am I supposed to do with a brat with purple hair? Useless woman. She can't even make a brat right, she just has to turn him into a lilac-haired wimp!" She watched as Vegeta snarled and growled and then suddenly flew out the open window.

She moved from behind the doorframe and towards the window to look out it just in time to see his ki trailing behind him. Suddenly, she smiled a genuine smile, her anger seemingly evaporating as soon as it had come. She didn't know how, and she didn't know why, but she knew everything was going to be all right. She knew she would still feel those emotions, and she would still long for him, but it was all okay; Vegeta, Trunks, and she would really be a family someday and somehow. She just knew it.

Then on the day they found out that the mysterious youth was really her son's future self, she had to stifle a giggle, which caused the others to give her strange looks and wonder if she had lost her mind due to the stress of the situation. 'Lilac-haired wimp, indeed!' thought Bulma with a Vegeta-like smirk on her face as Vegeta looked at their future son with shock evident on his face.